Western Europe

Global Voices Summits

Monday, June 04, 2007

Pride & Prejudice

Gay rights are human rights. It is a paradox that the same rights, that served as the moral basis of liberation from the communist yoke in Eastern Europe, are now denied a group most in need of them. Still, today this is the case in large tracts of our continent, remaining a stain on the very same shield of liberty set to protect the right of the individual.

During the last few weeks, events related to LGBT-rights have given rise to both concerns and hopes about the situation of homosexuals in Central and Eastern Europe. Developments have clearly shown that homophobia is still rampant in the region, but all the same there are promising tendencies in some countries that at least some authorities have started to respond to international critique against official homophobia. Reviewing recent events, gives a somewhat more hetereogeneous picture than was the case only a year ago.

Lithuania

A few weeks ago, a celebrity homosexual was beaten beyond recognition in Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The only reason was that he was openly gay. He might as well have had a pink triangle stitchted to his chest. Homosexuality is simply not socially accepted in this deeply Catholic country, and people and parliamentarians alike do not hesitate to openly condemn this "pariah to society."

Last week, Amnesty criticised Lithuania for not respecting gay rights, actively hindering an EU-sponsored campaign "For Diversity - Against Discrimination" - in celebration of the Europan Year for Equal Opportunities for All. Now, the campaign has had to be delayed in anticipation of permission from Lithuanian authorities. Last week, the Vilnius Rainbow festival was denied the right to assembly in the capital. In response to the exposed situation for the Lithuanian LGBT-community, the European section of the International Gay and Lesbian Association (ILGA) has decided to arrange its annual conference in Vilnius this autumn.

Russia

Turning East to Moscow, a group of LGBT-activists - including several western parliamentarians - were brutally beaten by anti-gay groups, when trying to hand over a petition to mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Their simple plea was to argue for the permission to march through central Moscow during the 2007 Moscow Pride festival. While being beaten by skinheads, Russian police stood idly by watching the "spectacle" afar, only to afterwards arrest some thirty gay rights' activists, including two members of the European Parliament.

Latvia

However, what might be considered a slight improvement was yesterday's Pride march in Latvian capital Riga, organised by the Mozaika network. With the experiences from last year's violent anti-gay protests in fresh memory, authorities now allowed some 1,000 activists to march the streets under heavy police protection. Still, the march has created a deep rift in the Latvian LGBT-community, and ILGA-Latvia has publicly denounced organisers as provocateurs and profiteers, whose actions will only worsen the situation in the country.

Poland

Another partial success was the 19 May Warsaw Pride festival, where some 5,000 LGBT-activists were, for the first time, allowed to undertake the march. Despite massive anti-gay protests, the Pride parade went by without the extensive violence we have got used to see in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. However, Poland remains a fundamentally homophobic country, and the Kaczyński twins, ruling Poland as President and Prime Minister, are among the country's foremost opponents of gay rights. Polish homophobia is, to be quite frank, on the edge of the ludicrous. Thus, last week, Poland's Children's Ombudsman considered banning the kids' show Teletubbies. Why? The reason is laughable: Apparently, one of the "male" characters in the show carries a handbag. Such a role model might prove a negative influence on Polish children, the Polish Ombudsman argued, as it might indicate the small blue figure was - GAY! Lo and behold! It was only after widespread ridicule in international media, that the Ombudsman decided to reconsider her position.

Gay Rights are Human Rights

Protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has gradually become a self-evident part of international law over the decades. The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) has been judged applicable on sexual orientation, thus safeguarding the same political rights to the LGBT-community as any other social or political movement.

The list is far from exhaustive, and serves only to illustrate how current international law protects the human rights of LGBT-individuals. Still, although many states of Central and Eastern Europe pride themselves with becoming part of Europe, prejudice prevails against homosexuals in large tracts of the region. It simply is not acceptable when politicians and people alike pursue a policy of public homophobia, as is the case in many of the abovementioned countries. Becoming part of Europe means becoming party to the humanistic social and cultural heritage of Europe. As long as this is not the case, the road to true integration remains long. The tragedy about sexual orientation discrimination in Central and Eastern Europe is however that it often is the same dissidents and democratisers who, during the soviet era, fought for human rights, that today deny one of the most exposed groups in society the very same rights they once held so dear. Obviously, the fruits of freedom are sown unequally.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Dear Sir,

The only beating recently in Vilnius that comes to mind is that of a businessman who also appears regularly on his own TV show, and who, although rumoured to be, is very far from being "openly gay".In fact, national media speculated that the attackers could have been of "non-traditional sexual orientation". One can imagine the effects of such class-accusations.

I have always considered the person I am referring to as openly gay, but of course it may also be a question in whose company one dares to openly display one's sexual orientation.

In a country like Lithuania, it may be one thing to be out in the open among foreigners and a completely other thing among fellow compatriots. However, that only serves to further illustrate the difficult situation for homosexuals in Lithuania.

Still, there is no doubt that the beating of the person in question was due to his alleged homosexuality.

As you might understand, I wish to refrain from exposing who I am referring to, just in case it would be the case that he has not come out of the closet yet. Still, regardless of whether this person actually is homosexual, the fact remains that he was beaten just because he was perceived as a homosexual. So, does it really matter then if the person in question is gay or not, if the motive of the crime was that a person is perceived as a homosexual?

I am just a casual 'compatriot', who happens to be gay, too.The point I was trying to make was that the hate as a factor was never raised in public. The victim and everyone else were happy (again, in public) with shadow-business-dealings explanation.

Moreover, in the context of this incident, gays were left as suspected attacking, not the victimised party. It really does not matter whether the person is gay or not. The problem is, an outsider had no chance of knowing he was beaten because he was perceived as gay.

The definition of 'openly gay' could of course depend on personal experiences. However, there was nothing open in the way the society (and most importantly - the gay community) dealt with this event. In my opinion, it takes out the most important part of the 'open', together with a chance for a good lesson.

Thank you for this! Your comment was very much to the point. I am aware of how the case was treated publicly, which is really a tragedy in itself for the person affected by this hate-crime. I only hope that he will feel comfortable to stay on in Lithuania and does not feel compelled to emigrate, just because of who he is. That would only add to the tragedy for him as well as for the Lithuanian LGBT-community.

Thank you for making this post. Lately there has been a lot of anti-gay news about the Polish, but you have made it clear that homophobia is an issue throughout Eastern Europe. And what is more, eastern Europeans are also guilty of all kinds of racism as well and not just anti-Semitism. I think though that tolerance for minorities is only a recent idea. We are only 40 years from Martin Luther King, thirty years from the feminist movements and 17 years from at least a generalized agreement that we are not capable of communism. But this is obviously news out here. You can't blame people for insisting that ethnic backgrounds are political; lines as well. But I agree that a basic respect for one's fellow man is much more important. This piece also got covered on the BEINGHAD Times [http://bhtimes.blogspot.com]

An excellent overview, as usual -- but I would like to point out that ILGA-Latvia, the LGBT "group" that criticized the pride event, is a minuscule organization (merely a couple of people, according to some), and as far as I know it uses the ILGA name without permission (Mozaika, which organized the gay pride events, is the real ILGA affiliate here).

Another minor correction -- the participants didn't actually march through the streets; their parade was restricted to the Vērmanes dārzs, a park in central Rīga, which was sealed off by the police to protect them from the NSS (rightist extremists) and Ledyaev's sect (a mostly Russophone charismatic church). There was heckling (of the extremely profane variety depite the supposed "family values" the homophobes claim to profess) and some fireworks were set off, frightening the participants -- but all in all the event was a success.

There was also a counter-event including the Catholic Cardinal and hard rock bands (!), which drew about a thousand people (the organizers had predicted a hundred thousand...).

Thank you for your comment and for covering it on "Being Had"! You are quite correct to point out that the development of Human Rights is quite recent from a historical perspective. However, it has been a motor in unforeseen political developments in the last 30 odd years, not least in Eastern Europe, where paradoxically the same rights that overthtrew totalitarianism, as I argue, now are denied groups most in need for protection by the very same rights.

Thank you for your comment and your benign view on the piece. Most of all, though, it was very good to get your additional view and information. I do not always have the time to follow everthing in detail, so I am happy to learn more about topics I write about, so your comment was most welcome, not least in this regard.